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Early life He was 18, she was 26 Six months later first child born Three children, two of which were twins Lived with his father, successful glove maker Next eight years “lost years” ????????

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Making plays in London Early 1590’s writing plays in London Successful as playwright, actor, and shareholder of acting company Lord Chamberlain’s Men The King’s Men The Globe Theatre

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Blackfriar’s Theater

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Elizabethan Age Favorite of Queen Elizabeth I Shakespeare has strong heroines, perhaps inspired by Elizabeth First feminist? Portrayed the virtues of strong women who achieve their goals

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Jacobean Age King James I cultivated and strong patron of the arts Elevated Shakespeare’s company even higher, making the participants gentlemen

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Success Most popular acting company in London Spent much of time in London away from family Later bought second most expensive house in Stratford

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Shakespeare’s house

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Statue to Shakespeare

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Monument to playwrights

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I’m not dead yet. Died age 52 of fever? Typhus? "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted." ~ Vicar of Holy Trinity Church

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Oh, maybe I am. Buried in Holy Trinity Church

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Will’s last will Left his wife his “second-best bed” Hmm… Gave daughters, friends and relatives everything else, which wasn’t all that much If he was so successful and famous, where did all his money go? Did not arrange to have his plays printed or mention them in his will

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Jonson’s praise This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With Nature, to outdo the life: Oh, could he but have drawn his wit As well in brass, as he has hit His face, the print would then surpass All that was ever writ in brass; But since he cannot, reader, look Not on his picture, but his book. – Ben Jonson, Lines on a Picture of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson

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Shakespeare’s Plays Comedies All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Cymbeline, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Troilus and Cressida, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale Tragedies Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus Histories 1,2, and 3 Henry VI, 1 and 2 Henry IV, King John, Henry V, Henry VIII, Richard II, Richard III

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Theatre in London London 200,000 people 1590’s: high mortality, crime, unsanitary conditions, crowding Young men from countryside, like Shakespeare Pickpockets, prostitutes, commoners, gentlemen, foreign fashions, theater red-light district Most important cultural form English Renaissance Sophisticated audience, novelty, variety, complexity

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Theatres Theater more respectable Plague decimates 1/3 to 2/3 of city’s population Playhouses breeding grounds, often closed Afraid of political unrest, so licensed Companies 15 plays/month Several thousand during Shakespeare’s time Bare stage; new play every day, so big sets expensive, impractical

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Theatre Costumes main expense, language and imagination Cannon burned down Globe in 1613, no one killed but one man’s breeches caught fire, bottle of ale doused Trapdoors, deus ex machina, sword fights, jigs and dances Men and boys played all roles; women forbidden because “immoral”

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Poetry Shakespeare wrote poetry from when plague shut down theatres in London Wanted to make name for himself Poetry considered more sophisticated and gentlemanly than theatre Narrative poetry and sonnets

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Sonnets Sonetto, little song Italian, Dante, Petrarch Earl of Surrey adapted rhyme scheme to English, known as Shakespearean sonnet Time, Beauty, and Verse Very popular 1590’s Collection known as a sequence or cycle

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Sonnets Sonnets to a young man to a dark lady to Cupid About procreation and immortality in verse Beauty also immortalized, preserved in poetry “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”~Keats “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”~Keats

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Unrequited love Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, and the idea of courtly love Evolution of feeling and thought toward the beloved: enchanted, worshipful, confounded, disenchanted, and combative Dark lady: eyes and hair of black Adulterous affair ending in frustration and deception

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Sonnets “For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright/Who are as black as hell, as dark as night” Young man having and affair with dark lady? Love triangle, and then competition, rival poet Sonnet’s formal structure challenged to create within constraints Sound, meaning, and image combine

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How to read a sonnet: follow the train of thought, look for shifts of tone or direction Thought, followed by example, then comparison Layers of meaning, metaphor, words connected to each other Couplet reveals even deeper meaning

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Origins and Sources Did not create stories, aside from Love’s Labor’s Lost and The Tempest Holinshed: Chronicles of England Scotland and Ireland, 1587: plot elements, character names, and descriptions, but reshaped to suit dramatic purposes Edward Hall: The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, 1548

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Origins and Sources Boccaccio: Decameron, 1353; people fleeing plague in Florence, bawdy and full of innuendo Romances (long narrative in poetry or prose) Seneca: tragedies of deception and revenge Plutarch: Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

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Impact of Shakespeare’s Plays Emotional impact Use of language to reveal or convey character Extremes of human experience Complexity of character, motivation, real and three dimensional Dialogue reveals a character through his or her words, directly and indirectly Much dialogue poetry; no people did not speak this way

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Impact Racy stories appealing to common person as well as educated; evolving London, cultures and classes mixing Ben Jonson: “not of an age, but for all time” Coat of arms “Not without merit” Didn’t protect his plays for posterity Half of plays printed by time of his death, rest by friends: First Folio

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Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare? Authorship controversy Documents show he lived and wrote the plays Playbills named him Plays published after performance with his name Shareholder in company who performed them Other famous people wrote about him

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Conspiracy Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is often the correct one Commoner, country boy, son of illiterate tradesman and mother, never went to university; must have been aristocrat But English Renaissance and others of that time had similar backgrounds: Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, Spenser

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de Vere Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford: education, courtly knowledge of Elizabeth I, writer, poet, comedy, military, life parallels many plots of plays; died 1604, and Shakespeare did plays in 1609 and 1613 Freud a proponent

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Marlowe Christopher Marlowe: anti-Stratfordians, literary professional, son of tradesman, university degree, born same year as Shakespeare, but already famous when S. came to London in 1590’s

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Marlowe 1593 charged with heresy as atheist and “murdered” by men in British intelligence and took up Shakespeare’s name as a cover Marlowe was a spy, so it’s suspicious Marlovians’ literary analysis say “fingerprint” the same But stark differences in style and content, though Shakespeare certainly influenced by him

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Yet more conspiracy Sir WalterRaleigh: explorer, poet, philosopher, statesman, courtier lived until 1618, so chronology fits, never wrote a play, but did poetry Queen Elizabeth I herself?

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Separated at birth? You be the judge.

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Who was Shakespeare? So, was Shakespeare really Shakespeare? Does it matter? Shakespeare in a minute WW2A WW2A Original pronunciation n9s n9s

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Catholic? Queen Elizabeth outlawed: fined, tortured and killed if conspiring Parents Catholic, may have been hired as a tutor in a Catholic household Hoghton’s will: instruments and costumes, mentions a William Shakeshafte Catholics treated respectfully in his plays No solid evidence

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Gay? Historians: no such concept at that time May not have spent much time with Anne, but did have three children Theatre traditional venue for gays Shakespeare wrote love poetry to men But also to women Inconclusive

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English Renaissance Rebirth of civilization Started earlier in Italy ( ) Rejected “dark ages” of Medieval Europe Revived learning of ancient Greece and Rome Age of Exploration Religious and political turmoil

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Tudors 1485 Wars of the Roses over Monarchs consolidated power over nobles and assured stability Henry VII rebuilt treasury, established law and order, increased prestige of monarchy Henry VIII Catholic, Defender of the Faith, against Martin Luther Catherine of Aragon no son

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Tudors Henry VIII marries six times Mary and Elizabeth half sisters Jane Seymour had son Edward Edward becomes king at age nine, dies at 15 English replaces Latin in church Book of Common Prayer required for public worship Protestantism more or less established

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Elizabeth I Elizabethan Age One of longest-reigning English monarchs Ushered in era of English supremacy and prosperity Renaissance education: Greek and Latin classics and patron of the arts and writers Reestablished supremacy over Church Ended religious turmoil by compromises that both sides could live with

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Elizabeth I Mary Stuart Catholic cousin next in line for throne Imprisoned by Elizabeth for 18 years, still instigated plots Parliament insists on Mary’s execution, 1587

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Stuarts 1603 James VI of Scotland named successor and becomes James I of England Son of Mary Stuart, Stuart dynasty, Protestant Jacobean Era Patron of the arts Expanded world power of England Established Jamestown, Virginia 1607 Power struggle with Parliament “Divine Right” Persecuted Puritans, founded Plymouth Colony 1620 due to religious intolerance

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Elizabethan Drama and Lit Christopher Marlowe popular 1580s Tamburlaine and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, dies at 30 Of course, Shakespeare King James Bible 1620 “most monumental prose achievement of the entire English Renaissance” Fifty-four laborers seven years to translate into English Shakespeare was one of them Most widely-quoted and influential work in English Shakespeare close behind